Video’s always fun. Especially when it features ridiculous stunts you can’t help but want to watch over and over again. I’m pretty sure that if we weren’t all in a conference room with 90 other people, and were instead in our cubicles, we would have liked to watch the Megawoosh video a whole lot more than the two times they replayed it this afternoon at the second day of The Conference Board’s Social Media Seminars.

Owen Mack, chief of strategy and development at social media video strategy firm CoBrandIt, concluded the morning half of today’s conference with a  session that certainly intrigued me: Viral Video Makes Me Sick.

Mack identifies four types of videos he considers successful and examples of companies that managed to serve the purpose:

• Viral Video: Megawoosh. The video had a cumulative 3.5 million views, mostly in the United States, but the link, www.Megawoosh.com leads directly to the German version and features an antiquated Microsoft Office product – why not update it and capitalize on the traffic?
• Educational, corporate video: Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com owns the video results for cloud computing with this simple 3 minute video that has just over 80,000 views – nothing too extravagant, but highly effective in front of the audience where it needs to be. On top of that? it doesn’t hurt to be one of two videos featured anytime someone searches for cloud computing.
• Product Introduction: Cisco Catalyst 6509-V-E Switch Video Data Sheet — or what Mack called something along the lines of a typical, dry, boring product spiel. Hey, it is what it is.
• SEO Benefits of Video: Womma Video Webinar. Created using Mack’s own computer, poor quality and sound, not the right format for the player, but within 24 hours and just 9 views, Mack owned the search “Womma Video Webinar.”

So, why does viral video make Owen Mack sick?

First of all, he argued that video doesn’t have to be viral to be successful. He claimed that most times the number of views comes secondary. Current standards of measurement at marketer’s disposal include views, comments, ratings, response videos, subscriptions, and click through rates.

He makes the comparison between having a million views where no one makes it to the end, or 200,000 views where everyone makes it to the end and actually sees your call to action—kind of a no brainer when you put it like that. Basically, hard numbers aren’t always the best or most accurate measure of video success.  Because of the high drop-off rate in video, however, Mack does still stress the need for companies to get to the AHA! moment within the first 10 seconds, then use the rest of the video to explain it.

Where this becomes most relevant for B2B companies is in universal search. In fact, Mack said that having good keywords attached to your video may be more successful than if those words were attached to a blog post. “Find a term that’s specific,” he said, authoritatively, “and take it over.”

With the help of social networking, you can actually get your video out there. If it’s not available, no one’s going to find it. “The whole thing with video these days,” Mack said, “is trying to get people not to come to your site necessarily, but get your content to where they are.” Mack talked about how videos like Puma’s “Chasing [Usain] Bolt” game took off using the “video response” capability in YouTube: He attached the video to the Associated Press’s YouTube channel TrackShark, which garnered over 3 million views for its video, “Usain Bolt runs 9.69 for World Record in 100m.”

What makes video successful? Depends! What do you want it to do for you?

•  Are you trying to reach a huge audience or a smaller, more targeted one?
• Is there a call-to-action?
• Do you want to rank high on search engine results?

Like any other marketing strategy, companies have to take a step back and figure out what the purpose is and what they want from the results that are gathered.

Moreover, Mack advised companies to respond to feedback and comments on their videos in the same way they would any other social media channel. YouTube also has gotten far more sophisticated in terms of its data and analytics, allowing content owners to determine what actions viewers are taking (e.g., comments, favorites, ratings).

Unfortunately, the misconceptions around video are also giving rise to malicious agencies and companies that create video “spam blogs,” or splog, that have no other point than to jack up view counts. They serve to satiate those who are misguided into thinking number of views are the key to success—even if they’re artificial.